Have you ever seen the TV show “Family Feud” with host Steve Harvey? Toward the end of each show the winning family chooses two of it’s members to play “Fast Money” During this time one member goes off the stage into a sound proof booth, while the other plays the first round. The contestant is given 20 seconds to answer 5 questions. If at any time he or she is unable to answer one of the questions they are allowed to say “pass” and move on to the next question and if time permits they can come back to try and answer that question.
Just recently while watching the show one of the contestants decided to “pass” on one of the questions. As I began to think of what actually takes place and how, within seconds, the contestants mind is able to change their thought process and “move on” to the next question, I realized how much control and power we have over our thoughts. Philippians 4:8-9 says: 8 And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. 9 Keep putting into practice all you learned and received from me—everything you heard from me and saw me doing. Then the God of peace will be with you.”
According to this scripture God has given us the ability to control our thoughts and even change them whenever we want, even as quickly as in a matter of seconds! We have been given by God the ability to go from worry and negative thoughts to thinking thoughts that are positive and good! In order for this to happen we must learn to tune-in and become “aware” of our thoughts. For many we have made it a habit to “think the worst” and/or “worry.” The good news is, God has given us the ability to “change” our thinking.
In the Bible there is a true story of a woman who was sick for many years, the scriptures say that she had spent all of her money on doctors but that their treatments did not work, in fact it says that she grew worse, until she heard about Jesus and how that nearly every town he went into he healed the sick. As I was studying the scriptures for a sermon I was preparing I read that this woman was healed when Jesus came to her town and that her miracle was sparked first by her “thoughts”. Let’s take a look, “A woman in the crowd had suffered for twelve years with constant bleeding. She had suffered a great deal from many doctors, and over the years she had spent everything she had to pay them, but she had gotten no better. In fact, she had gotten worse. v27 She had ‘heard’ about Jesus, so she came up behind him through the crowd and touched his robe FOR SHE THOUGHT TO HERSELF, “If I just touch his robe, I will be healed.” v27 Immediately the bleeding stopped, and she could feel in her body that she had been healed of her terrible condition.” Mark 5:25-29
Thoughts are Powerful! Every decision we make in life always begins with a thought…and thoughts turn into actions! Without “thoughts” there is no direction, no movement and in her case had she not changed her “thinking” she would not have had “Faith” to believe that Jesus could heal her. Notice that her healing didn’t come with thoughts like “Maybe I’ll be healed” or “If it’s Gods will I’ll be healed” NO! She thought “If I just touch his robe I WILL be healed” Jesus later said to her in verse 34 “Daughter your faith has made you well. Go in peace your suffering is over”
Let me tell you life in general will present to you many opportunities to either live by fear, worry and doubt OR you can tap into what God says and begin to “Fix your thoughts” on the truth: His promises. And as we can see we have the ability to CHANGE our thinking in a matter of seconds! You might be saying, “How am I going to be able to do this?” Practice what I’ve been doing, even recently after watching Family Feud, I’ve been using the PASS method and as silly as it may seem it works! When negative, hurtful and irritating things present themselves to me (especially what people say and do) I ask myself “OK, you can let this upset you for the rest of the day or longer OR you can PASS…You can decide to change your thoughts on the matter and forgive them and go on living a happy and peaceful life!” Note: If we choose to hold on to bitter thoughts and feeling, we put ourselves in our own prison of torment. It’s not because of what they did, it’s because we refuse to forgive, we refuse to PASS and move on.
It’s a wonderful thing to have been given the ability and power to STOP our thought process and PASS on any negative thoughts and make the decision to think good thoughts filled with faith, hope and love and in turn produce a life of peace!
